The Michael Jackson estate has settled its ongoing lawsuit with
Disney over the TV show ‘The Last Days Of Michael Jackson’, which aired
on the entertainment group’s US-based ABC channel in May last year.

The estate went legal almost as soon as the programme had been broadcast,
filing a long list of complaints about the show, which – its lawyers
argued – made use of lots of copyright material that was owned by the
estate without permission. This was particularly egregious, the estate
argued, given Disney’s long history of enforcing its own intellectual
property rights.

Disney then retaliated in August 2018 in a legal filing that
cited free speech rights under the US Constitution’s First Amendment and
the fair use principle under US copyright law. These particularly
applied, it said, to the makers of news programmes and documentaries
like ‘The Last Days Of Michael Jackson’.

Therefore, Disney argued,
it was well within its rights to make use of clips of Jackson’s music
and videos in its programme without licensing that material from its
owners.

Now, more than a year later, the two sides have reached a settlement agreement without having to go to trial. So that’s nice. Although terms are not known, a rep for the estate told Rolling Stone that “the matter was amicably resolved”. Disney and ABC have not commented.